Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 91 i Australian Muscle Car

The Bathurst 1000’s future absolutely fascinates me. On one hand, crowds and television audiences have never been bigger. On the other, this giant following is built upon the whole Ford versus Holden rivalry that’s barrelling along a dead-end road. I hadn’t attended the Great Race since 2013 – the 12 Hour is more my thing these days – and spent Friday and Saturday of this year’s race weekend wandering around Mount Panorama. I can tell you I was truly staggered by the increase in crowd numbers on those days since my last visit. Friday’s attendance in 2016 was akin to a Sunday crowd in the early noughties. Not only was the crowd massive, but the dickhead element, that cursed the event for so many years, was thankfully low. Officially, the…

A two-owner 1970 Falcon XY GT sold at Shannons’ Melbourne Spring Auction for $176,000 – a price not seen at auction for this model for nearly a decade. The Yellow Ochre GT with its long range fuel tank and wind-back sunroof was pursued relentlessly by enthusiasts until it sold at a pre-GFC price. Bidding started at its conservative pre-auction estimate of $80,000 and quickly rose in $5,000 increments to $130,000. Five phone, three floor and several online bidders then drove its price forward in $2000, then $1000 lots before the hammer fell to a Victorian floor bidder. Meantime, a 1970 Holden HG Monaro GTS 186S continued the trend for strong six-cylinder Monaro results when it sold for $64,000. The Melbourne Spring Auction also saw a rare homologation special change hands…

Max Kenworthy Last issue we shined the spotlight on Max’s 42 years at Ford Australia. Max, who worked in the Personnel department, supplied us with more images than we could squeeze into that two-page story, so we held over some pics of cars he has owned and driven. As a young man he owned the actual chassis in which Harry Firth and Bob Jane won the first Bathurst classic, in 1963. This was followed by a Mustang, Escort and a long, long line of fast Falcons. Things have turned full circle, as today his pride and joy is another Mk.I Cortina – a GT500, the model Ford homologated for Bathurst for ’65. Sharpe family archive Issue #90 also played host to images taken by the late Geoff Sharpe, a team…

Some muscle cars are bought by loving owners who pamper them like members of the family. Other muscle cars, though, aren’t so lucky. Some get stolen, smashed or thrashed. Some get parked and lost under a layer of dust in an old shed, others get left outside to brave the elements and slowly rust away. Sad, but true. We eyeball plenty of beautifully maintained and/or fully restored muscle classics in AMC, but as serious car pervs we have to admit there’s few things more intriguing – or exciting – than spotting an old classic in a paddock, or a shed, or under a shady tree, that’s seen better days and in need of some TLC. Some are beyond saving, but they all have a story to tell. So, get…

The fate of #13C and its mates Our twin focuses this issue on Bob Holden and the 50th anniversary of the Morris Cooper S’s Gallaher 500 triumph just begs the question: what became of the 1966 race’s winning chassis? Sadly, the answer is not good. The car was stolen not long after its second Bathurst 500 campaign and never recovered. The ’66 race winner, bearing NSW registration plates EFK 167, was sold on behalf of BMC by none other than Bob Holden himself post-race. One of the conditions of the sale was that it couldn’t remain Castrol green, as per the works’ cars, so it was painted white. “One of my customers ended up with the Bathurst winner,” Holden explains. “John Millyard raced the (white #45C) Mini at Bathurst the…

The day the Falcon died proved to be a relatively low-key occasion at Broadmeadows. No pomp. Little ceremony. No company outsiders. Ford wanted it to be a private affair for its workers, who began arriving for their last shift just after 6am on October 7. Media and a few Blue Oval enthusiasts gathered outside the facility’s gates and weren’t privy to the ‘Kodak moments’ held inside the factory. Like the lyrics of a well-known Cold Chisel song it was a case of standing on the outside looking in... and trying to catch a glimpse of any activity. The last Ford Territory, a Winter White TS featuring the Barra 4.0-litre in-line six-cylinder engine, rolled off the line at about 9.30am. A short-time later a Kinetic Blue XR6 followed it, as the…

All the emotion over the final Falcon on October 7 overshadowed a similar landmark day at Elizabeth in South Australia. On the same day that Broadmeadows built its last vehicles, Holden also ended production of the Cruze range. The small-car experiment in South Australia was a struggle from the start and it was no surprise that production of the small car was wound up ahead of the 2017 deadline for the death of the Commodore. For the record, the final Cruze – a SRI Z-series hatch – was driven off the assembly line at 8.30am on October 7. It was donated to Holden’s longtime charity partner, the Leukaemia Foundation, which will raffle the car to fundraise for patient transport services and accommodation. The end of Cruze production saw around 270…

One of Tasmanian motorsport’s all-time favourite cars was the star attraction at the early. Bruce Gowans’ newly restored Repco V8-powered Celica Sports Sedan made its public debut at the Hobart Sporting Car Club’s biggest annual meeting, turning demonstration laps. Bruce and son Adam both hit the track in the car, while car’s creator, triple Australian Gold Star champion John McCormack, was on hand to see it return to its old stomping ground ahead of its trip to the Muscle Car Masters over the October 29-30 weekend. The Celica was carried to the track in the Ling Gowans team’s old Dyna transporter. Sadly, the trip from Tassie to Sydney is beyond the Dyna’s capabilities and a more conventional ‘hauler’ will lug the Celica up to the Masters. The Historic Sports Sedan…

Fancy throwing a Torana A9X across the top of Mount Panorama but don’t have a racecar lying around? Luckily any number of console games have you covered these days with Mount Panorama being included in numerous titles. One being the sixth incarnation of the popular Forza Motorsport title for Xbox. And with a slowly growing catalogue of Aussie cars its easier than ever to jump in some homegrown muscle. It features such homegrown classics as the XB GT Falcon, HSV GTS, Brabham BT24 and the full complement of Supercar marques. Since launch there has been the additions of some Holden favourites such as the HQ Monaro GTS 350, VL Group A SV Commodore and A9X Torana. All cars are fully upgradeable and you can tune the setup till you’ve got…

1966 was a year of change in so very many ways. In January, Sir Robert Menzies retired as Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Party after no less than 16 years in the top job, replaced by Harold Holt, who was to mysteriously disappear in the sea at Cheviot Beach near Portsea in Victoria the following year. The Liberals were in control in Canberra although cracks were appearing through inept decision-making by Holt; and Gough Whitlam had been elected leader of the Labor Party. We found ourselves becoming more and more embroiled in the unwinnable war in Vietnam. Holt ran with the political slogan, “All the way with LBJ!” and the first National Service conscripts flew out from Richmond RAAF base in Sydney bound for Vietnam. Conscription sparked mass…

The countdown is on to the final hurrah of Australia’s car manufacturing industry. One of only 13 countries able to build cars from ground up, our century-old motor industry has seen many well-known car manufacturers come and go. One of the most cherished was the British Motor Corporation (BMC)-Leyland, whose Victoria Park plant in the inner Sydney suburb Zetland (now Waterloo) employed a united nations of workers during the post-war boom and up until its unfortunate closure in 1974, when 6800 employees lost their jobs. The star car for BMC locally, as it was globally, was undoubtedly the Mini and the ‘rockstar’ of the range was the Cooper S. The Cooper S ruled both the racetrack, winning the 1966 Gallaher 500 at Bathurst, and the road, where it was popular…

Following on from the success of the XA model, Ford Australia released the XB model in September 1973. The XB GT was a more refined and tamed version of its predecessors, especially when new emission laws were introduced in 1975 robbing some of the power output, although Ford maintained the same 300bhp rating from previous GTs and HOs. Marketed under ‘The Great Australian Road Car’ slogan, the XB GT was to be the last of this famous line for almost 20 years. The XB’s aggressive new forward sloping nose and divided recessed grille, the twin nostril bonnet scoops, contrasting bonnet panels with matching highlights around the wheel arches and door sills, all stamped this GT as something special. Buyers took quickly to this new sleek design with Ford Australia selling…

Every time I make a pilgrimage to Mount Panorama for a major race I get into the spirit of the occasion by driving from Sydney to Bathurst and home again in something relevant to the big race. With this year’s 50th anniversary of the Cooper S’s victory, there was really only one choice: a modern version of the mighty Mini. A fast one! MINI Australia put me in the newly launched Convertible John Cooper Works model for a week of, quite literally, flying the flag – at least while I had the roof up. The silver and black JCW certainly turned heads with its tasteful Union Jack-patterned top. The JCW drop-top sits above the Cooper and Cooper S Convertibles in the range and MINI Australia hope it enjoys the same…

Tickford is back as Ford performance takes on a new look following the death of the Falcon. The iconic name, which was used by a factory hot-up shop that produced a long run of tweaked and tizzied fast Fords, is now being applied to the top-selling Ranger ute. It’s been picked up by Prodrive Racing Australia, the company that fields four Falcons in Supercars racing, as it diversifies for the first time into road cars. The new-age Tickford crew has plans to work through the Ford Australia range over coming years, starting with the Ranger but moving quickly on to the Mustang and then the Everest and other imports. The man behind the move is Rod Nash, a co-owner of PRA, who is doing the deal with backing from race…

Former Holden Dealer Team driver and mechanic Wayne Negus died unexpectedly in September. He was 69. Negus is best remembered for his stint with the legendary HDT during the mid-1970s. A stalwart of the West Australian motorsport scene, Negus was the king of the Street Cars at Wanneroo, inclusive of racing a dealer team Torana A9X touring car on radial tyres! Negus honed his skills at an early age aboard his father Syd’s Plymouth Special, before his first serious foray into circuit racing, which was aboard a lightweight Mini. The Mini was later modified for speedway competition, as was an early Torana model. Negus ventured back into circuit racing with a Series Production XU-1, running among the leaders in the 1972 Hardie-Ferodo 500 before losing control at the end of…

Just as car manufacturers were gearing up for a new era of performance motoring with larger capacity machines hitting the road, motor racing was starting to reflect the ‘bigger is beautiful’ mantra. Internationally, the 1966 World Championship was the first of the three-litre formula, with maximum engine capacity doubled from the previous season. The change caught traditional racing car constructors on the hop and created the opportunity for an engine-building subsidiary of Repco in Melbourne that was grasped with both hands. Ford had its eyes on the ultimate sportscar prize, supporting an eight-car armada for the twice-round-the-clock classic in France. The 16-strong driver line-up comprised a trio of Australians and three New Zealanders; the latter celebrated the hardest. Drivers of both nationalities were prominent in the first runnings of a…

Sandown’s retro-themed Supercars round was a massive success on several fronts. The professional teams embraced the concept with ‘old school’ liveries and crew uniforms, plus a selection of old touring cars were displayed and paraded at the spiritual home of motorsport in Melbourne. Among the cars of yesteryear on show was a Holden Torana Group C car having its first public outing following restoration. Fittingly for an old touring car at a retro round, this four-door A9X appeared back in the colours in which it made its debut at the same venue, 39 years earlier. This striking looking car was raced just once by its original owner, Warren Cullen, before he decided the then brand new four-door A9X (this was no upgraded L34) was not the way he wanted to…

Sunday October 6, 1991 will go down in local motor racing history as the day a Japanese manufacturer first won Australia’s Great Race. Tied to Nissan’s victory in the 1991 Tooheys 1000 was the beginning of the end for the international Group A touring car category. In fact, the winds of change began to gain strength and blow across Mount Panorama’s paddock area midway through that very race. While the twin-turbo,4WD Nissan GT-R of Jim Richards and Mark Skaife pounded forth on its relentless demonstration of technological superiority, the vanquished – Holden and Ford – issued an historic joint statement. Mid-race! CAMS had been expected to announce the 1993 touring car rules during the Bathurst 1991 weekend, but the confederation held off until the international governing body, FISA, tied down…

1966 Holden HR Premier in Landale Gold Metallic As featured in this issue, the HR Premier was a landmark in its day. This 1:18 diecast release from Classic Carlectables has working suspension and bears an etched metal number plate, which identifies the edition number of your model. The 186 ‘Red Motor’ and surrounding bay are highly detailed, while the Samoan Tan interior features a stunning dash and captures the luxury look of the original. Soft vinyl seats and individual fabric seat belts add to the realism. Add one to your shelf at stockists or via www.classiccarlectables.com.au HSV E3 GTS and Maloo Biante are marking the end of an era for HSV with the upcoming release of these two 1:18 resincast models of the iconic Maloo R8 Limited Edition R8 ute…